by Lee Savino
Battle red rolls for the third time over my eyes, and this time, I won’t be denied. The scientist hurt Alice. He broke her limbs, healed them with the med-kit, and then broke them again. For seven months, he caged her, and he caused her pain.
He made my brave human afraid.
I set her down on the ground. “I’m not hurt,” she says to me. “Kadir, it’s okay. It’s just a scratch.”
It’s not okay. But it will be.
I move toward Kravex, a predator stalking his prey. He backs up instinctively, but there’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide from the dragon.
Alice is bleeding. The Crimson Guard is in pursuit. I don’t have time to kill the scientist the way I want. “I should torture you the way you tortured her,” I tell him. “I should make you suffer.”
The scientist reads my expression, and he knows he’s going to die. “Please,” he whimpers. “I have to get the hoo-man back. You don’t understand. Nara’vi and Fal’vi will kill me if I fail.”
The worm thinks to appeal to me? He thinks I care about his bleating?
I reach out and grab him, lifting his body in the air. I snap his neck. Dropping the corpse to the ground, I turn back to Alice. “He will never hurt you again.”
“Draekon,” a woman’s voice calls out, much closer than I expected. It’s the Crimson Guard captain. “We have you surrounded. You cannot escape us.”
Present-day Draekons can’t shift into the dragon at will, only through the mating bond. The Crimson Guard soldiers believe they have me cornered. I exhale a curse and clench my hands into fists. I’ll have to shift and fly out of here. It’s the only way out.
There’s not enough room in this alley for the transformation. When I shift into the dragon, I will destroy the houses on either side of me. Can’t be helped.
“Alice.” I crouch next to her. The knife only nicked her flesh, thank Caeron. “Whatever happens next, don’t be afraid. Climb onto my back and hold on to my spikes. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The nearest door opens. “No need for that,” a familiar voice says. It’s Olivia Bucknell. Behind her, I see her two Draekon mates, Liorax and Zunix. “There’s another way out.”
14
Alice
I’m losing my mind. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.
For seven months, the translator in my ear has acted as an interface between my ear canal and my brain, translating the Zor I hear into English. I’ve grown accustomed to the split-second delay that occurs when I’m in conversation with Kadir. The translator is a marvel of engineering, and it’s’ so unobtrusive I’ve almost forgotten I’m wearing it.
But the woman at the door isn’t speaking Zor. As impossible as it is, she’s speaking English. Either I’m hallucinating, or she’s human.
I go through the doorway. The woman—a white redhead with gravity-defying breasts—smiles at me in greeting. “It’s weird to see another human, right? I’m Olivia Bucknell. These are my mates, Zunix and Liorax.”
“Alice Hernandez,” I reply on auto-pilot, shaking Olivia’s hand. Olivia Bucknell. She’s the one who had asked Kadir to rescue us.
Kadir had also said that the women on Fehrat 1 had mated with Draekons, but mates in the plural? First time I’m hearing of it. I direct my attention to the two men flanking Olivia. Both are tall and broad-shouldered. Liorax has shoulder-length black hair and piercing blue eyes. Zunix’s hair, on the other hand, is cut ruthlessly short.
They nod to me in greeting. Zunix turns to Kadir. “The Crimson Guard isn’t popular on Frez,” he says. “The captain will need to get permission from the local authorities before her team starts breaking down doors. That buys us some time to escape.”
“How?” Kadir’s voice is terse. Something’s bothering him.
Liorax gives him a wary glance. “Underground tunnels. The port area is riddled with them. It’ll take us out of the quarter.”
“Good.” Kadir moves into the room. Olivia’s two mates are big and broad, but Kadir dwarfs them. It’s his presence. He seems bigger. More imposing. More threatening.
I can’t take my eyes off him.
Big scary alien. I don’t know if it’s because of the bloodbath at the warehouse, or the encounter with Kravex, but right now, Kadir looks like he’s hanging on by a thread. I shoot him a reassuring smile.
It bounces off him. He fixes my neck with a stare. “Do you have a med-kit?” he demands.
“Yes,” Zunix says. He fishes one out from his pack and hands it to Kadir. “Keep it. I have a spare.”
“Thank you. Alice, let me take a look at your wound.”
Oh, for goodness sake. Is that why he’s freaking out? “It’s just a scratch. I’m perfectly fine.”
He stalks to me. “Is that so?” His voice lowers fractionally. “What will bring you down is an infection,” he says, a thread of amusement running through his voice. “Tiny, microscopic bacteria.”
The jackass is throwing my own words back at me. “Asshole,” I murmur under my breath. “How long have you been waiting to say that to me? No, never mind. I don’t want to know the answer.”
“Liar.” His lips twitch. “All done.”
He’s done? I hadn’t flinched from the med-kit; I’d barely even noticed its stinging as it sealed my wound. I’d been too distracted by Kadir’s sarcasm.
Oh. Oh.
I shake my head wryly, and his grin widens. He winks at me. The other three don’t seem to notice.
“How did you get hurt?” Zunix’s voice pulls me back to the room. “And why are the two of you even here?”
Kravex. Kadir had snapped his neck, quick and efficient. One minute, the scientist had been alive, and the next minute, his life had been snuffed out. I should care about his death. I am a doctor, after all. I swore an oath to preserve life, not take it. But I can’t seem to bring myself to feel anything other than relief.
He will never hurt you again.
My big, bossy, aggravating alien. He promised me he’d protect me, and he delivered.
“There was a threat,” Kadir says tersely. “I took care of it.”
Zunix and Liorax exchange glances. Olivia forces a smile on her face. “Where’s the other woman? Why isn’t she with you?”
Something about her tone makes me bristle. Kadir doesn’t work for you, I want to snap. Don’t talk to him as if he’s your servant.
Kadir’s eyes narrow. Liorax and Zunix both step in front of Olivia. The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife. I hastily intervene before people start throwing punches. “We’re all understandably a little tense.” There’s a couch in the room. I sit down and give Kadir a pointed stare until he joins me. “Let’s calm down, shall we?”
Olivia exhales. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We’re not having a good day.”
“What happened at the docks?” Kadir asks quietly.
“It took us far too long to find the location of the lab,” Zunix replies bitterly. “Then, when we got here, it was too late.” His gaze is bleak. “We failed those Draekons. All of them, slaughtered without mercy. What about you?”
“Alice was on Calis,” Kadir says. “The scientists were recalled to the Crimson Citadel. One of them, a greedy fool, thought he could make some extra money by selling the humans to Cotari traders. They’re planning to offer Tanya Sinclair to the Great One during the Offering of the Tribute. We tracked them to Frez, to Kosagash.”
He’s left out the part where his intuition told him something was wrong. He doesn’t want them to know.
“So it’s a coincidence that we ran into each other.” Olivia smiles at me. “A lucky coincidence.” She pulls out a bottle of liquor from her pack. “Shall we drink to that? God knows I need a drink after what we saw.”
So much death. Was this what Kadir’s life was like under the scientists? Was this what they’d demanded of him? I watch him out of the corner of my eye. The big alien paces from one end of the small room to another, ignoring the shot g
lasses Olivia’s setting on the table. He’s acting like a freaked-out cat. “You want to go back to the Bikana?” I ask him.
“Yes.”
Olivia looks at him and then at me. “Lio and Zun, can you show Second the tunnels?”
Second?
Olivia’s mates get to their feet. “Of course,” Lio says obligingly. “Second, shall we?”
Why do they keep calling him that? He has a name.
Kadir raises an eyebrow in my direction. I nod reassuringly. Olivia isn’t exactly subtle about her desire to talk to me alone, and I want to know what she has to say.
The three of them disappear. As soon as they’re out of sight, Olivia turns to me. “You’re Latina? Do you speak Spanish?”
“Of course. Do you?”
Olivia switches to Spanish. “I’ve been told my accent is terrible.”
“Whoever said that wasn’t lying.” I smile to rob my words of their sting. “You don’t want to be overheard.”
“I don’t,” she agrees. “Draekon hearing is extremely good, and none of us know what Second is capable of.” She fiddles with her bracelet. “You’ve probably noticed that most Draekons are extremely attractive. Nine of us survived the crash. All of us are now mated to Draekons, so I get it. I get the appeal. After all, I gave into it. But Second…” Her voice trails off.
My head swimming in confusion, I wait silently for Olivia to continue.
“What was done to them was terrible,” she says. “Let’s just be blunt and call it what it is. They were enslaved by the Zorahn scientists. Lio and Zun were exiled to the prison planet when they tested positive for the Draekon mutation. I thought their punishment was harsh. A lifelong exile to a hostile planet. No civilization, no advanced technology, no women.” She grimaces. “But in comparison to what Second and his cohort went through, Zun and Lio had it easy. They weren’t forced to kill. They weren’t tortured into obedience.”
She takes a sip of her drink. Her hands tremble. “Think about the most powerful soldier you know. That’s Second. He doesn’t need guns. He can tear people apart with his hands and claws. And he’s been through hell. He could snap at any moment.”
There’d been a moment when Kravex’s blade struck me when I saw something terrible in Kadir’s eyes. It had been a barely leashed dark rage, and it had been terrifying.
“There’s a woman called Sofia back on the prison planet,” she says. “Coincidentally, she’s a doctor too. Sofia’s mates denied their need for her. It built into a deadly fever. Rorix and Ferix would wake up in strange places with no recollection of how they got there. They attacked people but had no memories of it. It was scary.” She shudders. “Rorix and Ferix are two of the nicest guys in the universe. They were civilians, not soldiers. Second is a trained killer. What happens when he snaps?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I saw the way you looked at him, Alice. Listen, I know he came for you, and he rescued you from what was probably a terrible situation. He’s a good-looking guy. You think he’s your knight in shining armor, and you only see the best in him. But he’s not who you think he is.”
This has gone on for long enough. Olivia thinks I’m an idiot. She thinks I’m a damsel-in-distress, blindly attracted to the hero who saved me. I know exactly who Kadir is. I saw him snap Kravex’s neck without a second thought.
And I also saw him give the street urchin an extra coin.
“Second will continue to look for Tanya Sinclair,” she says. “But you don’t have to accompany him. Zun, Lio, and I are headed back to the rebellion headquarters. You should come with us.”
I respond immediately, instinctively. Being separated from Kadir isn’t an option. “No.”
“No?”
Logic, Alice. Use logic. “No. Tanya is severely traumatized. She has been tortured by the Zorahn scientists. In a few days, she’s going to be offered up as a sex slave. Kad—” I catch myself. “Second showing up out of nowhere and grabbing her will likely retraumatize her. Tanya needs to see a familiar face during her rescue.”
“Oh.” Olivia doesn’t like it, I can tell. Not that I particularly care about her feelings. “Are you sure? Second is—”
“Dangerous,” I interrupt. “Yes, you’ve said that. How long did you talk to him once he was out of stasis?”
“Not long,” Olivia admits. “Just long enough to ask him to go on this mission.”
“Well, I’ve spent five days with him. Five full days. Under the circumstances, I’m more qualified to talk about his mental state than you are.”
She downs the rest of her drink. “Fine,” she says, giving me a sharp look. “You’re determined to go, and I’m not going to stop you. One thing only. Ask him why he came to look for you. Ask him why his squadron accepted this mission.”
15
Kadir
The tunnels are fine. They won’t disintegrate on us. “Alice and I will leave immediately,” I tell the two men.
Liorax straightens. “Let us take the human back to the headquarters,” he suggests. “She’s been hurt. She’ll be safe with us.”
No. My dragon roars in protest. Alice stays with me.
“Are you implying I cannot take care of the human?”
Zunix sucks in a breath. “Olivia is human,” he says. “Then there’s the woman that was abducted from Earth. Dorothy Pitts. At the headquarters, Alice won’t be alone.”
The rathr sinks its claws into me. Alice is going to want to be with her own people. “That’s her choice to make.”
They give me a sharp look. I stare at them. They drop their eyes first.
It’s not that Liorax and Zunix aren’t brave. They are. It took courage to suggest that Alice would be better off at rebellion headquarters.
But if it comes to a fight, I will defeat them. Zunix was trained as a spy. Liorax was a Highborn from the House of Laris. Neither of them has faced combat. Neither of them has seen slaughter. Neither of them has killed over and over again.
I have. I was the Second of the Crimson Force. I have walked in fields littered with the dead. I have heard their bones snapping beneath my feet. I have waded in pools of their blood.
Crimson Force. Dread chills me. I’ve been trying not to think about what I sensed in the lab.
You know what you felt. You must face your suspicions. You have to confront the truth.
“I need to be alone,” I say abruptly. “Is there a room in this house where I won’t be overheard?”
“Upstairs.” Zunix points the way. “First door on the left. You won’t be disturbed there.”
I go to the room and shut the door behind me. I send a message to the others. Comm now. It’s urgent. Within a knur, the four connect. “What’s the emergency, Second?” Third asks.
Zunix is a spy. He’ll try to listen in on the conversation. I switch to Alya. “I am uneasy.”
The planet of Alyanar was home to a pre-spaceflight sentient species. They were poets, writers, philosophers. Not warriors.
The scientists had wanted them destroyed. They hadn’t told us why, just ordered us into battle. It had taken us a month to slaughter the Alyanez. I had fought my orders. We all had. All I remember from that time was the rathr tearing my mind apart, forcing me to obey. That, and their language.
That was a thousand years ago. Every mention of the Alyanez has been removed from the ThoughtVaults. All that’s left of them is their language, a language only six people in the High Empire can speak.
I fill my squadron on today’s discoveries. The warehouse, the Draekon bodies. “Blood Heart’s ascendance came after years of toothless mutiny. Six months ago, they were impotent. Now, they’re slaughtering Draekons.”
Fifth leans forward. “You didn’t come on a secure comm to talk about thirty dead Draekons. Not unless…”
“I felt something.” I flinch from the truth. If only I could deny my senses. “It felt familiar. The Draekons that were killed today…” I take a deep breath. “I think they were killed by First.�
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My words rock them. Sixth sucks in a breath. “You’re sure?”
“I don’t know. I might be wrong.” Please let me be wrong. “Maybe my senses were scrambled by the sight of so much blood.”
Fourth raises an eyebrow. “Is that likely?” he asks pointedly.
I’ve seen more than my share of blood and death. It’s never affected my judgment before. “If I’m right, we have to grapple with the fact that one of our own killed thirty defenseless men in cold blood. They couldn’t even shift. He just cut through them.” I look at the others. “This… this is our responsibility to fix.”
Third looks grim. “If First finds out we’re alive, he’ll know we’ll come for him. We won’t let him continue his murderous spree. He’ll know we can’t let him live.”
“He’ll come for us first. Us or him.” Fifth’s eyes are hard. “Let him. We will make him regret it.”
“Be careful,” I caution. “The carnage I saw today… it wasn’t the work of a sane person.”
There’s a knock on the door. It slides open, and Alice sticks her head into the room. When she sees the others, an abashed look crosses her face. “Sorry, I’m interrupting.”
I wave her in. “No, you’re not. Come in.” I switch back to Zor. “Alice Hernandez, meet my squadron. Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth. Not very original, I know.”
She gives them a tentative smile. “Hi. Kadir told me you’re looking for the other missing women. Thank you. It means a lot to know we’re not alone.”
Fifth tilts his head to one side. “Kadir?”
Bast. This is awkward. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “I know names aren’t for us, but I chose one for myself. Kadir ab Usora.”
All of them register that Alice knows my chosen name; none of them comment on it. “You aren’t the only one,” Third says solemnly. “My name is Ruhan. Sec—” Something catches his attention. “Kadir. I must go now. I’m finally getting somewhere with the search.”
“You’ll check in tomorrow?”
